Making of an Officer

Soldiers talk about the ROTC program and personal experiences. ROTC benefits: civilian network, graduating as a second LT (same level as graduating from a military school like West Point), freedom of choice, freedom of decision making. Sold...

The Army Experience

Making of an Officer

Soldiers talk about the ROTC program and personal experiences. ROTC benefits: civilian network, graduating as a second LT (same level as graduating from a military school like West Point), freedom of choice, freedom of decision making. Sold...

There is also that civilian network here; there is somewhere to go on weekends to wind down unlike near the academies. Essentially graduating from WestPoint and graduating from here you are going to be at the same level. You are both going to be Second Lieutenants. ROTC cadets educated at a place like Johns Hopkins, a private university, offer an important compliment to those trained at the military academy. They are Tuscany tigers; they will always be tuscany tigers. They understand that this is a HPC institution. It is not a secret, but it is also like extended family.

But they do not have to major in ROTC. They focus on some other things and participate in activities whether it is fraternities or sports, because those are things that are going to carry through for the rest of their lives. It does nothing but help you grow up. If you have someone telling you what to do and when to do it all the time than you do not have that freedom of choice and freedom of decision making that you do if you go to ROTC. It definitely takes a motivated person to do well in ROTC and life in general. We want people who have technical and scientific understanding, whether it is in engineering or biology.

The Army ROTC sends us to the nurse summer training program were we get extra training that a civilian nursing student would not get. I have had more experience here than I have had in two years of nursing school. When they come here we are constantly saying "When you become a registered nurse, when you become and Officer" you are going to be doing this and this; lets go ahead and give it a try. So by the time they leave here they are just all smiles, thinking this is so cool and I didn't know I could do that. In reality it is a huge responsibility that other peoples lives are in your hands. Even though it is a training environment, it will eventually become a reality.

It is my desire to become a pediatrician and to take care of children. I respect the Army's organization, but I also know that I have to work hard to be where I want to be. To work with soldiers that work hard to keep safe and to be able to give back and to send them home at the end of the day is probably one of the greatest feelings in the world. We have people who do sociology, history, a whole variety of majors because the Army is representative of America. Hopefully I am going to get into the military intelligence field. If I want to be a vet or if I want to be a doctor, the Army would pay for schooling, which is really nice. After graduating from Hopkins I plan to go to law school. Taking on a challenge like Ranger school is just the first step I can take to push myself to the limits to find out what it takes.